Petrobras (PBR) Stock Gains as Oil Prices Increase

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Petrobras (PBR) were gaining 4.4% to $9.19 Tuesday as oil prices increased on lower production forecasts.

WTI crude oil for July delivery was up 3.1% to $59.96 a barrel early Tuesday afternoon, and Brent crude oil for July delivery was up 3.1% to $64.66 a barrel.

Oil prices were falling after the U.S. Energy Information Administration said it expects shale oil production to fall by 91,000 barrels a day to 5.5 million barrels a day in July when compared to June production rates, according to the Wall Street Journal.

High shale oil production in the U.S. contributed to the recent record high U.S. oil stockpile levels and helped bring down oil prices last year.

Petrobras is a Brazilian oil company that owns oil refineries and oil tankers and is engaged in the research, extraction, refining, processing, trade, and transport of oil from wells, shale, and other rocks.

TheStreet Ratings team rates PETROLEO BRASILEIRO SA- PETR as a Sell with a ratings score of D. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate PETROLEO BRASILEIRO SA- PETR (PBR) a SELL. This is driven by a number of negative factors, which we believe should have a greater impact than any strengths, and could make it more difficult for investors to achieve positive results compared to most of the stocks we cover. The company's weaknesses can be seen in multiple areas, such as its disappointing return on equity, generally high debt management risk, generally disappointing historical performance in the stock itself and feeble growth in its earnings per share."

Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:

Return on equity has greatly decreased when compared to its ROE from the same quarter one year prior. This is a signal of major weakness within the corporation. Compared to other companies in the Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels industry and the overall market, PETROLEO BRASILEIRO SA- PETR's return on equity significantly trails that of both the industry average and the S&P 500.

The debt-to-equity ratio of 1.31 is relatively high when compared with the industry average, suggesting a need for better debt level management. Even though the debt-to-equity ratio is weak, PBR's quick ratio is somewhat strong at 1.09, demonstrating the ability to handle short-term liquidity needs.

Looking at the price performance of PBR's shares over the past 12 months, there is not much good news to report: the stock is down 37.83%, and it has underformed the S&P 500 Index. In addition, the company's earnings per share are lower today than the year-earlier quarter. Naturally, the overall market trend is bound to be a significant factor. However, in one sense, the stock's sharp decline last year is a positive for future investors, making it cheaper (in proportion to its earnings over the past year) than most other stocks in its industry. But due to other concerns, we feel the stock is still not a good buy right now.

PETROLEO BRASILEIRO SA- PETR's earnings per share declined by 17.6% in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. The company has reported a trend of declining earnings per share over the past two years. However, the consensus estimate suggests that this trend should reverse in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, PETROLEO BRASILEIRO SA- PETR swung to a loss, reporting -$1.12 versus $1.70 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings ($1.65 versus -$1.12).

The change in net income from the same quarter one year ago has significantly exceeded that of the Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels industry average, but is less than that of the S&P 500. The net income has decreased by 18.3% when compared to the same quarter one year ago, dropping from $2,280.00 million to $1,862.00 million.